A Look Back

For a long time, I've been trying to archive "winning" and "beating others" from my vocabulary. The main impetus being I didn't like myself when I was hyper-competitive. I didn't like how I might treat my loved ones in a situation where I was under stress, especially when my performance goals weren't that important in the grand scheme of things. I didn't like how I treated myself by overtraining (leading to injury) or eating like crap because I was so anxious about performing. After all, I wasn't planning on going pro. Looking back, I often had a sense of overreaching... in the scheme of self-comparison, I was stretching myself without due process and teetering on the edge of self-destruction. I would forget about what was most important in the moment - having fun and having it with others.

And so, since my knee surgery in 2014, knowing that I had to be more mindful about my body and injury prevention, I began a quest for something more balanced and healthy.... it hasn't been pretty and I don't have all the answers but I think I've come to a point where I can say something meaningful on the topic:

Success, for me, happens when I detach myself from a potential outcome and just focus on the process and finding the right motivation.

Such a mouthful. But to illustrate with bike racing as the primary analogy here, but keeping in mind that this also applies to general life: if I'm focused on crossing the line first, I'm distracted from the small steps I need to take to get there (get out of the saddle and pedal hard, how to find the right positioning in the pack, etc.). Certainly I can think about those things but if my focus is primarily the outcome, I also attach my anxiety and desperation to my actions, which are generally detrimental. I tend to crack easily under pressure and expectations but if I can just focus on doing the thing and zooming the zoom, I find myself in a better mental space.

Before Chico, I finished reading Top Dog: The Science of Winning and Losing (Po Bronson & Ashley Merryman) to garner more insights on nurturing a champion mentality. A lot of it reaffirmed what I believed about focusing not on the outcome of the race and finding the right motivation. But it also brought to light insights into gender differences in competitive approaches and risk taking. Not everybody can be motivated the same way. I really recommend the read, if not to understand yourself better and maybe you'll have an idea of what approach to success you yourself can take!

Here are two excerpts from the book:

“Researchers have found that the more people focus on their odds of winning, the less likely they’ll go for it. But the more they focus on what they’ll win if they succeed, the more likely they’ll go for it.”

“To compete requires that we embrace uncertainty—that we instinctively recognize that the suspense of an unscripted outcome, even if we lose, is more rewarding than a life preplanned.” 

To me, this means that if you focus on what you can gain, and if what you think you can gain is something within your control, you are more likely to compete. And to compete means you better yourself. (Note that winning is not something completely within your control. It is an outcome of the process of competing. It is the most uncertain of outcomes from the start, especially since you do not know for sure where the strength and determination of your competitor is and since the circumstances of the competition can change over time.)

Coming full circle to myself, after almost four years of self-work, I am the first to acknowledge that it is VERY difficult to separate the anxiety over a potential outcome from staying present and doing my best in the moment.

It's been a lifetime journey, but so far these are the lessons I've learned:

First, I need to practice seeing myself with compassion. This means I need to forgive myself for mistakes I make and take them as learning experiences. And I also need to allow myself to feel successful (because I worked hard and I deserve it!). This is the most difficult thing I am trying to learn and something that is always a work in progress.

Second, I need to practice seeing others not with jealousy or resentment, but with inspiration and awe. After being more conscious that everyone has their own individual journey, this became so much easier over time. Seeing the best in others (rather than seeing competition in others) also serves to wake up the best in myself.

Third, I need to practice living for goals that are not about times, winning, or placing. I chose process goals like "this training block, I want to focus on raising my power endurance (FTP)" or "this race, I want to execute a standing final sprint or experiment with attacks and breakaways or give a strong leadout for the sprinter."  Most of all, I practiced setting the goal of learning. I needed to take a learning mentality into every race. If the outcome was not what I hoped, then at least I would learn something about myself or about racing or about my teammates.

Fourth, I practice taking the love and pride from my loved ones as motivation when the going is good and the when the going gets tough. This means when my mind inevitably slips into a place where I might want to give up, I think to myself "but I want to make my teammates proud" or if I'm running those last tortuous 5 kilometers of a marathon, I'm thinking "my loved ones are waiting for me and I have to finish strong for them!" Piggybacking off of my second point: the support you get from others is nearly limitless when you practice giving that support back (positive feedback loop!).

Finally, when I say "practice," I really do mean practice. For one reason or another, the above things do not come naturally to me at all. I've put a conscious effort into being more self-compassionate and recognizing the achievements of others and I've been very mindful of the kinds of goals I set, so much so that I worry that it's over the top. But the results of trying to tip this psychological balance are evident in my early racing results. Certainly I'm not relying on just my strengths to win crit races or sprints. I also need to rely on my intrinsic motivation and instinct. Instinct doesn't develop instantaneously... It develops with experience. It comes with learning your strengths AND weaknesses. And you can most effectively do that when you focus on the process. I have to reaffirm to myself constantly that I'm being motivated by love (for the thrill, for racing, for my teammates, for the people I love, for my friends back home) and that the outcome is ultimately less important than the process -- there is no need to be afraid of failing, let alone think of failing.

Eventually, my hope is that these mindsets become instinct and habit and will make me a far better competitor than I could ever hope to be (again, both in bike racing and general life). Taking those instincts and habits with me will keep me humble as I race more in the higher categories, when winning will almost certainly not be easy.